


What Not to Talk About

by Tallulah



Category: Battle Royale (Manga)
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Friendship, Gen, Never Have I Ever, Past Violence, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28361862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: The boys drink and play Never Have I Ever.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9
Collections: 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020





	What Not to Talk About

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 12daysChristmas challenge on Dreamwidth, prompt "two friends together".

Even when you hang out with the same friends all the time, the places where you do it make it different. That’s how it feels to Yutaka, anyway. Like, when they’re at Charity House, with Shuuya strumming his guitar and Yoshi the one who remembers to get lemonade or juice for everyone, little kids constantly wandering in and out, arguing or showing off toys or asking Shu and Yoshi to arbitrate a dispute, the days feel longer and Yutaka kind of feels more like a kid himself. 

Or, the few times they’ve come round to his place (which they don’t much because the apartment is way too small, especially when his mum comes back from work) he’s felt stupider, and like he’s not really sure what he’s meant to be doing, or he’s trying to make it all too much about him. 

And of course it would be at Mimura’s house where they’re drinking booze stolen from someone’s liquor cabinet and it’s almost midnight and they’re alone in the house still because Mimura’s mum is still at her “book group,” he said, making quote marks with his fingers, “all the housewives drink wine and talk shit about each other and I believe sometimes there’s a book involved?” and his dad is working late (which Yutaka knows means _going to a love hotel with a secretary and not going to be home til morning_ , but he doesn’t know if any of the others know that and he thinks Mimura wants to pretend Yutaka doesn’t either). 

Of course it would be at Mimura’s house where they’re playing Never Have I Ever (Yutaka suggests it, which was a stupid idea because he’s done very little in his life to date, but he’s had more of Mimura’s dad’s whiskey than he’d realised and his mouth is on autopilot). Sugimura and Yoshi both kind of look like they’d rather be anywhere else than here but then Shuuya’s like, “Well, we gotta play the G-rated version, if we get onto sex stuff Mimura will get wasted and we’ll stay sober and then we’ll get barred from here for corrupting the son and heir.”

Mimura – who barely seems drunk at all – shrugs and said, “Well, I didn’t want to be the one to mention it, but...” and the other two kind of relax a bit. Then Shuuya kicks it off with “Never have I ever built sandcastles on the beach at midnight,” and takes a drink, which is such a dumb warm-hearted Shuuya thing to say that Yutaka starts to think this wasn’t such a bad idea after all, because Shuuya’s always trying to make people feel more at ease, and even though Mimura usually isn’t, he’ll probably go with it. (Also, Yutaka kind of trusts Mimura’s not going to be a jerk. Like, that’s basically their friendship. Yutaka’s a dork. Mimura could be a massive jerk about it but isn’t. It balances out, somehow.) 

Although Mimura still takes the opportunity to say, “Never have I ever pissed all over someone in order to stop them hurting a puppy,” and grin at Yutaka until he has to take a drink, but that’s sort of the risk you take with this game. And then Yutaka has to explain the details behind that situation and Yoshi’s like “That is the most…. the most _you_ kind of story I’ve ever heard,” and Yutaka sort of attempts a bow while sitting down. Shuuya bursts in with “Never have I ever won a street fight with two karate gangsters,” and raises his glass to Sugimura - “Come on. Come on, tell me I’m wrong –” and Sugimura, blushing, is like, “They weren’t _gangsters_ –” but takes a drink anyway. Yutaka chimes in with, “I mean, never have I ever won a _fight_ , let’s be honest,” and Sugimura looks even more uncomfortable at that, like he wants to pretend the martial arts skill is something belonging to some other guy. Shuuya gets Yoshi with “Never have I ever run a debt collector off my property –” “Shut up, Shu, it wasn’t like that,” Yoshi says, but Shuuya tells him to drink anyway – “Remember, we have to stay away from sexual experiences _at all costs_ , Mimura’s liver depends on it –”

The booze is making Yutaka’s head feel blurry and he’s also kind of feeling the pressure of being the dorky kid who never does anything and so he blurts out, “Okay, okay, never have I ever seen someone’s eyeball popped out of their skull –” 

Which is something they don’t talk about. That time in gym class. Not just his friends, but all of the boys in Class B seem to kind of want to pretend it didn’t happen. Like, okay, Kiriyama just up and did _that_ for no reason, and… they still have to share a classroom with him, so what else are they meant to do? Mimura had said if Kiriyama’s dad wasn’t rolling in it Kiriyama would’ve got expelled, but then he looked thoughtful and said _actually, scratch that, maybe the administration just hated Jaguar as much as we did..._

There’s the memory of that conversation and then behind it, around it, there’s the too-bright recollection of shouting and sunlight and the smell of feet and gym mats and – the glistening –

Yoshi and Sugimura are both looking kind of sick at the memory, too. Shuuya never saw it, of course, he got kicked out of class before it started, but he’s still frowning. It wasn’t like they couldn’t tell him about it after he heard all the yelling.

Mimura looks half-impressed – “That was a low blow, little buddy –” and raises his glass in Yutaka’s direction before taking a sip. Yoshi pulls a face: “I mean, never did I ever _want_ to see that. I had nightmares for a week after.” 

Mimura shoots back with, “You would’ve done anyway, that animal-print thong was traumatic all on its own, eyeball was just the – the cherry on the cake – as it were –” Yoshi groans. “Shut up,” Shuuya says, “I didn’t even see it and you’re giving me flashbacks.” 

For a moment Yutaka thinks he’s going to say something else, or Sugimura, like maybe they actually are going to say something about how _it was weird, right? It was… bad? That that happened?_ Yutaka didn’t exactly have nightmares about it but he felt vaguely sick for a good few days and unpleasantly aware of his own eyeballs. 

But Mimura didn’t seem bothered at all, and he doesn’t now, and it’s his house they’re in, hardly a place for heart-to-hearts. And he says, “Well, never have I ever nailed a member of the Souma gang,” and winks, and Shuuya starts yelling about how no one asked for the details of his sex life, and they move on to other topics.


End file.
